A Nightingale Christmas Wish

by Donna Douglas

  She knew arguing with a doctor was the worst crime she could commit. Even as a sister, her job was to carry out his instructions to the best of her ability and not to question his judgement in any way. But she knew from her experience in Theatre that doctors and surgeons were only human. They could make mistakes, just like everybody else. Helen had seen patients die on the operating table because a consultant had missed something, and no one had had the courage to question them.

  They faced each other across the table and for a moment Helen thought he was going to ignore her and carry on stitching up the patient. But to her relief he looked down at the young man and said, ‘Right, let’s see what you’ve been doing to yourself, shall we?’

  The patient groaned, already groggy from the shot Helen had given him.

  She waited tensely while Dr McKay took up his forceps and gently probed the open wound. She didn’t want to humiliate herself by being wrong, but she didn’t want to be right, either, for the poor young man’s sake.

  When Dr McKay looked up it was at Kowalski, who hovered by the door. ‘Nurse, please telephone Theatre and let them know there is a fractured femur coming down. And alert the X-ray department, too.’ He glanced at Helen. ‘It seems you were right, Sister,’ he murmured.

  Helen said nothing. The silence became uncomfortable as they waited for the porters to come and collect the patient.

  Five minutes later, they were shifting the young man on to the trolley. ‘Be careful,’ Dr McKay warned. ‘There’s still some broken glass in the wound, which needs to come out. If a piece shifts it could sever the femoral . . .’

  No sooner had the words left his mouth than a fountain of blood spurted violently from the wound. Helen grabbed a towel and started to mop at it, but the blood soaked straight through, flowing over her hands in a warm, sticky crimson tide.

  Dr McKay reached for a tourniquet as Helen dropped the towel and moved to place her hands around the rim of the man’s pelvis, her thumbs pressing down on the artery, feeling the hard bone underneath. She threw her weight against it, her feet slipping on the slick of blood under her shoes.

  She’d lost the feeling in both her thumbs by the time Dr McKay got the tourniquet strapped into place and stemmed the tide of blood. Then he moved quickly to ligate the wound, tying off the two ends of the artery and bringing them together.

  ‘How is he doing, Sister?’ he asked, not looking up.

  ‘His breathing is very shallow.’ Helen felt for his pulse, leaving sticky red fingerprints on his skin. His heartbeat skittered underneath her fingertips. ‘And his pulse is irregular.’

  ‘We’ll need some blood. Telephone down to—’

  ‘I’ve already got it.’ Helen nodded to Kowalski, who hurried off to prepare it.

  ‘How . . .?’ She saw Dr McKay’s expression change behind his surgical mask. She could see he didn’t know whether to be angry that she’d defied his orders, or grateful that she had anticipated his needs. In the end, neither won. ‘I’ll give him a shot of Vasopressin, while his blood pressure is still up to it. Then we’ll pack the wound and get him down to Theatre. They can sort him out from there,’ he said shortly.

  While Dr McKay administered the drug and packed the wound with Vaseline-soaked gauze, Helen set to work in the adjoining room, filling hot-water bottles and preparing blankets to keep the patient warm and prevent him from going into shock.

  Fifteen minutes later, the young man was on his way down to Theatre, and Helen and Dr McKay were alone in the Cleansing Room.

  She cast a quick sideways look at him as he scrubbed his fingers in the sink. His surgical gown was smeared with blood, but Helen knew that was nothing to how she looked herself. Her own white gown was soaked through.

  He didn’t say a word to her, or even acknowledge her presence. But he didn’t have to. Helen knew she’d proved her worth in that operating room.

  Whatever happened, she would make Dr McKay eat his words.

  Chapter Six

  THE NEW PATIENT arrived on Blake ward in the middle of the morning. By midday he was awake and letting everyone else know it.

  Frannie could hear his voice ringing the full length of the Male Orthopaedic ward as she did her rounds after lunch.

  ‘You don’t understand, I need to know!’ the young man roared from behind the screens around his bed. ‘Why won’t someone tell me what’s happened to him?’

  ‘Someone’s in a good mood,’ Mr Anderson, an arthritic patient, remarked with a grin.

  ‘Indeed.’ Frannie picked up his chart from the end of the bed. ‘Now, Mr Anderson, Nurse tells me you weren’t satisfied with your meal?’

  ‘Oh, it was right enough. There just wasn’t a lot of it.’

  ‘That’s because you need to lose weight.’

  ‘But I’m starving!’

  Frannie looked at the man, his bulk almost filling the narrow hospital bed. Starving wasn’t a word she would ever use to describe Freddie Anderson. ‘It’s for your own good, Mr Anderson. You’re putting too much strain on those joints, and it isn’t helping your arthritis.’

  ‘I know that, Sister. But have a heart. A fellow like me can’t live on that rabbit food you dish out. A nice steak and kidney pud, that’s what I fancy.’ He smacked his lips.

  ‘I’m sure you do, Mr Anderson, but I’m afraid I can’t allow it. Doctor’s orders.’

  ‘Couldn’t I at least have a biscuit or something? Just to see me through till teatime?’

  Frannie looked at his round, appealing face, then at the patient in the bed next to him. ‘Why don’t you just ask Mr Maudsley to give you his, as usual?’ she said.

  ‘Me, Sister? I don’t do anything of the kind!’ Eric Maudsley tried and failed to look innocent, but all he managed was a sheepish grin at his neighbour. He was as thin as Mr Anderson was fat, and Frannie knew the two men were firm friends.

  ‘I reckon we’ve been rumbled, Eric,’ Mr Anderson sighed.

  ‘True,’ his friend agreed. ‘Sister’s got eyes and ears everywhere.’

  ‘Indeed, I have,’ Frannie said. ‘Really, Mr Anderson, we haven’t put you on this diet to punish you. If you could just—’

  ‘But I need to know!’ The young man’s voice bellowed again, drowning Frannie out. ‘Where’s Richard? What have they done with him?’

  ‘I know what I’d like to do to that noisy beggar!’ Mr Anderson muttered.

  ‘Quite. Now, as I was saying—’

  ‘Is he dead? Is that why no one will tell me anything?’

  ‘Listen to him going on!’ Mr Maudsley tutted. ‘Strewth, I hope he ain’t going to keep that racket up!’

  ‘Oh, he won’t. Believe me.’ Frannie replaced the chart and smiled sweetly at the two men. ‘Excuse me for a moment, would you?’

  As she walked away, she heard Mr Anderson chuckling, ‘That’s done it, Eric. He’s got her on the warpath now.’

  ‘That’s right, Sister. You give him what for!’ Mr Maudsley called after her.

  Effie O’Hara, the student nurse, whipped round as Frannie swished aside the screen. ‘I-I’m sorry, Sister,’ she stammered, her blue eyes wide with panic. ‘I’ve been trying to calm him down, but—’

  ‘It’s quite all right, Nurse, I know you were doing your best.’ Frannie turned a severe expression on the young man in the bed. He was in a sorry state, his leg raised in a Hodgen splint, a complex metal contraption of wires and pulleys. His right hand and arm were also in a plaster cast, and his face was splotched with bruises. But there was a truculent expression in his green eyes as he looked at her.

  ‘Who are you?’ he demanded. ‘Are you in charge here?’

  Frannie had already studied his notes when he was first brought up to the ward. Adam Campbell, twenty-one years old from Pimlico. Fractured forearm and femur and a severed femoral artery. He seemed very angry for someone who had narrowly escaped death.

  ‘Indeed I am, Mr Campbell,’ she replied. ‘Now, what seems to be the matter?’

  ‘I want to kn
ow what’s happened to Richard.’

  ‘Richard?’

  ‘Richard Webster. My friend. He was driving the car when it—’ He swallowed. ‘Is he all right? I keep asking, but no one will tell me anything.’

  ‘That’s because we don’t know anything. And shouting at poor Nurse O’Hara is not going to change that.’

  ‘But . . .’

  ‘But,’ she held up her hand as he started to argue, ‘if you do as you’re told and try to stay calm, I will find out what’s happened to your friend.’

  He eyed her warily. ‘And you’ll let me know?’

  ‘Of course. But you have to stop shouting and disturbing the other patients. Do we have an agreement?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ he said grumpily.

  ‘Good.’ Frannie nodded to Effie O’Hara, who followed her through the curtains. ‘Now, Nurse,’ Frannie said. ‘Do you think you can cope with this patient, or would you like me to find another nurse to take over?’

  Effie O’Hara squared her shoulders. She was a tall, slender girl with typical Irish colouring – milky-white skin, startling blue eyes and an abundance of wavy dark hair escaping from her cap.

  ‘I can manage, Sister,’ she said.

  ‘Keep him as quiet as you can. You have nursed a post-operative patient before?’

  Yes, Sister.’

  Frannie glanced towards the screens. ‘Try to find out if he has any friends or family, too. Surely someone must be looking for him.’

  Adam Campbell drifted off to sleep shortly after Sister Blake left. Effie sat at his bedside, watching him anxiously, trying to work out whether he’d lost colour or whether his breathing was too shallow. She didn’t want to admit it to Sister, but she dreaded looking after post-operative patients on her own. She was always convinced they would die and it would somehow be her fault.

  Mr Campbell seemed much nicer when he wasn’t awake and being a nuisance, she thought. Not bad-looking either, in a way. He was well built, his dark hair unfashionably long with just a hint of a curl at the ends. She could imagine his pale skin freckling in the sun.

  She watched the rise and fall of his chest under his hospital gown. Was it her imagination or was it rising and falling a little less than it had before? Panic assailed her. Come to think of it, was it rising and falling at all?

  She had laid her head against his chest and was trying to gauge his breathing when he suddenly opened his eyes and stared at her.

  ‘What are you doing?’ he asked. He spoke in a well-educated drawl, like a medical student.

  ‘Making sure you’re still breathing.’ Effie straightened up, shamefaced at being caught out.

  ‘Have you been sitting here all this time, watching me sleep?’

  ‘It’s my job to keep an eye on you.’

  ‘It’s very disturbing.’

  ‘I have to do it until we know you’ve recovered properly from the operation.’ Effie reached for his pulse. ‘How are you feeling?’ she asked. ‘Any nausea or pain?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do you want me to fetch a bottle for you?’

  ‘A bottle?’ He looked mystified for a moment, then suddenly it dawned on him what she was talking about, and his expression turned to outrage. ‘Certainly not!’

  ‘You’ll have to use one sooner or later.’

  ‘Not in front of you, I won’t.’

  ‘Oh, I’ve seen it all before,’ she said airily. ‘Besides, I’ll need to take a sample.’ She finished taking his pulse and noted down the figure on the chart. She could feel him watching her.

  ‘Do you know if Sister’s found out anything about Richard?’ he asked.

  Effie shook her head. ‘But I’m sure she’ll tell you as soon as she knows anything.’ She looked down at him. ‘Is there anyone we can contact, to let them know what’s happened? Any family?’

  His face turned to stone. ‘I don’t have any family.’

  ‘A friend, then?’

  He thought for a moment. ‘You could contact Adeline,’ he said.

  ‘Who is she?’

  ‘My girlfriend. She’ll want to know where I am.’

  ‘Where will we find her?’

  He gave her an address in Bloomsbury, and Effie wrote it down carefully.

  ‘You will let her know, won’t you?’ Adam said.

  ‘Of course.’

  Sister Blake was sitting at the table in the middle of the ward when Effie gave her the slip of paper with the address written on it.

  ‘Adeline Moreau? What a pretty name,’ she commented. ‘Thank you, O’Hara, I’ll inform the Almoner’s office. I daresay it will make the patient feel a lot better to see a familiar face.’

  ‘Yes, Sister.’

  Sister Blake looked up at her. She was by far the prettiest of the sisters, small, dark and lively-looking. She was one of the nicest, too. In the month Effie had been working on the Male Orthopaedic ward, she had never known Sister raise her voice to anyone. All the patients adored her because she was always willing to have a laugh and a joke with them.

  ‘You’ve done very well, O’Hara,’ she said. ‘I don’t think Mr Campbell is going to be the easiest patient to deal with, do you?’

  ‘No, Sister.’ Effie glowed with quiet pride. Wouldn’t her elder sisters be surprised to hear her being praised for once? she thought.

  Sister Blake went back to her paperwork, but Effie hovered at her shoulder. She wondered if she should ruin it all by asking her next question.

  Finally, Sister Blake looked up. ‘Was there something else, O’Hara?’

  ‘Please, Sister, I wondered if you’d had any news about Mr Campbell’s friend – Mr Webster? Only he seemed very anxious to know . . .’

  ‘Ah, yes. I’m glad you reminded me.’ Sister Blake looked troubled. ‘I’m afraid it isn’t very good news, Nurse. Unfortunately, Mr Webster sustained a serious head injury during the crash. The doctors have had to operate to relieve some of the pressure inside his skull, but he’s still unconscious. And there is some doubt as to whether he has severed his spinal cord, too.’

  ‘Will he live, Sister?’

  ‘I don’t know, Nurse,’ Sister Blake admitted heavily. ‘The doctors have done all they can. He’s recovering on Holmes ward.’

  ‘I see. Thank you, Sister.’ Effie paused, taking it in. ‘Poor Mr Campbell.’

  Sister Blake looked up at her with a quizzical smile. ‘Don’t you mean poor Mr Webster?’ she asked.

  Effie blushed. ‘Yes, of course, Sister. I just meant – Mr Campbell seemed so worried.’

  ‘It does you credit to be so concerned about him,’ Sister Blake said. Then she added, ‘But don’t get too concerned about him, will you?’

  ‘No, Sister.’

  On her way back down the ward, Effie was waylaid by her elder sister Bridget, a senior staff nurse on Blake.

  ‘What did Sister want with you?’ she demanded. Unlike smiling Sister Blake, Bridget never missed the excuse to bully her. ‘I hope you’re not in trouble again?’

  ‘If you must know, Sister was telling me what a good job I did with the new patient in bed one,’ Effie preened.

  ‘Hmm. I noticed you were with him a long time.’ Bridget’s eyes narrowed. ‘I hope you weren’t flirting with him?’

  Effie’s mouth fell open. She might have known it would kill her sister to spare her a kind word or a bit of praise. ‘Honest to God, Bridget, what makes you say that?’

  ‘I’ve seen you with the patients, especially the young and good-looking ones. You’re often over-familiar with them. And you must call me Staff while we’re on the ward,’ Bridget reminded her haughtily.

  ‘I can’t help it if I’m naturally friendly – Staff.’ Effie emphasised the word. ‘Besides, I’d have to be as desperate as you to flirt with someone unconscious!’

  Bridget sent her a narrow look. They looked alike, with their dark colouring, blue eyes and willowy height, but there the similarity ended. Bridget had turned into a bitter old spinster before she was thirty,
and Effie had no intention of ending up like her.

  ‘I’ve a good mind to send you to Matron for your cheek,’ her sister snapped. ‘Now go and make yourself useful. It’s almost time for the tea round.’

  As Effie’s luck would have it, her middle sister Katie was in the kitchen. After passing her State Finals, she had chosen to join Male Orthopaedic as a junior staff nurse. Effie couldn’t imagine why she would willingly choose to work alongside their bossy elder sister.

  As they prepared the tea trolley, Effie complained to Katie about what Bridget had said.

  ‘She’s just jealous because the patients like me more than they like her,’ she fumed as she set out the teacups on the saucers.

  ‘You weren’t flirting, then?’ Katie asked. She was as dark-haired as her sisters, but smaller and plumper.

  ‘Not you, too!’

  Katie shrugged. ‘Bridget’s right, you are over-familiar with the patients. You’re here to look after them, not to find a boyfriend,’ she said primly.

  Effie stared at her. Katie used to be man mad, but since she’d got engaged to her boyfriend Tom she’d turned as priggish as Bridget.

  ‘If I wanted to find a boyfriend, I certainly wouldn’t be looking at Adam Campbell, believe me!’ said Effie with feeling.

  ‘All the same, you should watch it.’ As usual, Katie had to have the last word.

  Effie ignored her and shoved the trolley through the kitchen doors. She loved the patients on Blake ward, and Sister Blake was an angel. But thanks to Katie and Bridget, she couldn’t wait for her three-month stint there to end.

  Chapter Seven

  FRIDAY MORNING WAS the Ear, Nose and Throat Outpatients’ clinic, run by Mr Prentiss.

  Patrick Prentiss was a brilliant surgeon, but he had a reputation at the Nightingale Hospital for being difficult. Helen had prided herself on being able to handle his explosive rages during her time in Theatre, which was why she’d volunteered to assist him instead of subjecting the poor students to his temper.

  But after two hours of overgrown adenoids, infected sinuses, deflected nasal septums, polyps and mastoids, she was beginning to wonder why she’d agreed so readily. She’d forgotten what a hard taskmaster he could be.